Our continuing core programs and services include:

WE GOT YOUR SIX – a veteran-initiated storytelling series where veterans learn how to write a dramatic monologue or short scene from their experience and craft it for a live online or theatrical performance.

LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE – Our play development series where we read and workshop new works, with an emphasis on those written by LGBTQ and BIPOC playwrights of the Los Angeles intimate theatre community.

Mounting theatrical productions where we tell stories never heard from voices often ignored and supporting Los Angeles’ intimate theatre infrastructure through theater and rehearsal space rentals and artist salaries.

Immediately after incorporating as a 501(c)3 nonprofit, Lightning Rod Theater:

Began an engagement with the Los Angeles Unified School District and McBride Special Education Center to bring in dozens of actors from across LA’s 99-seat theatre community to perform children’s books for READ ACROSS AMERICA.  We’ve given hundreds of differently abled students their first theatrical experience.

Mounted theatrical productions about, by and for veterans of the US military, beginning with WOOF-WOOF (2014, Encore Award; Spirit of the Fringe Award) through most recently, WE GOT YOUR SIX (Encore Producers Award).

Produced theatre shows on LGBTQ and BIPOC themes: CRAFTSMAN (2016 Encore Award; Best Play and Best Comic Performance); THIS SIDE OF SWEETWATER (2017) and SWIMMER’S EAR (2021).
Began our Lightning in a Bottle play development program, giving many plays their first readings or workshops, including early versions of the US veteran penned WE GOT YOUR SIX and our 2024 production MEDEA COMES TO OUR TOWN.

Used Lightning in a Bottle to pivot into producing online content during the Covid-19 pandemic: SWIMMER’S EAR and other plays.

Mounted theatrical productions that pushed the art form into brave, innovative thematic and artistic territory.